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“What Matters Is Species Richness”—High School Students’ Understanding of the Components of Biodiversity

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Abstract

The definition of biodiversity stated by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in 1992 was conceived as occurring on three different organizational levels: genetic, species, and ecosystems. However, current understanding of biodiversity includes other components, such as the number, abundance, composition, and spatial distribution of species and functional groups. This paper aimed to identify high school students’ frameworks of biodiversity, to assess their conceptual understanding of biodiversity against scientific definitions, and to analyze the influence of sex and school location on students’ understanding of biodiversity. By administering a written questionnaire in which ten different biodiversity scenarios were presented, each consisting of two environments which differed in certain biodiversity components, we asked students (n = 321, 15–18 years old) to choose and argue their preference for biodiversity conservation. Students held a range of frameworks of biodiversity, with some of them being in agreement with scientific conceptualizations (idea of variance as the number of species, functional groups, and trophic relationships). However, students were strongly centered on species richness and undervalued population size, functional characters, species evenness, and alpha diversity. Biodiversity was associated with a notion of balance, by which a proportioned trophic chain prevents species extinction. Overall, students used few components of biodiversity in their argumentations, with no influence of school location or sex. We recommend that teachers fully integrate students’ frameworks with more updated definitions of biodiversity than that of the CBD, conceptualizing its components in order to empower students to decide on current socioscientific issues.

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Acknowledgements

We wish to thank all the students and teachers for their collaboration, Prof. Dr. S. Césere (FCA, UNC) for providing most of the plant figures used in the scenarios, and the anonymous reviewers for valuable comments on an earlier version of this article.

Funding

Special thanks to DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst / German Academic Exchange Service, Bilateral Exchange Program 50015739, Personal ref. no. 91577964), CONICET (National Scientific and Technical Research Council of Argentina), National University of Córdoba (UNC, SECYT 30720150100024CB), and FONCYT (Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científica y Tecnológica de Argentina, Projects PICT-2011-13799 and PICT-2015-1903) for financial support.

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  1. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales, Cátedra de Didáctica General y Especial, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Av. Vélez Sársfield 1611, X5016GCA, Córdoba, Argentina

    Gonzalo M. A. Bermudez

  2. CONICET (National Scientific and Technical Research Council of Argentina), Av. Vélez Sársfield 1611, X5016GCA, Córdoba, Argentina

    Gonzalo M. A. Bermudez

  3. Institute of Biology, Karlsruhe University of Education, Bismarckstrasse 10, 76133, Karlsruhe, Germany

    Petra Lindemann-Matthies

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  1. Gonzalo M. A. Bermudez
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  2. Petra Lindemann-Matthies
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Correspondence to Gonzalo M. A. Bermudez.

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Bermudez, G.M.A., Lindemann-Matthies, P. “What Matters Is Species Richness”—High School Students’ Understanding of the Components of Biodiversity. Res Sci Educ 50, 2159–2187 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11165-018-9767-y

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